


I am Clone? (previously named CT-7474-208)

by Butterflywithsass



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Clones die, Force-Sensitive Clone Troopers (Star Wars), Gen, It's the Clone Wars, Minor Character Death, My First AO3 Post, Non-Graphic Violence, Not Beta Read, battles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28661331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterflywithsass/pseuds/Butterflywithsass
Summary: 74 crashes during his first battle in the Clone Wars. And he is forced to survive and fight. But soon he discovers some unique abilities. 74 must learn the ways of the force if he is to find his own way in the galaxy.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

  
“Get out! Get out now!”  
A beam of light shot through the dusty interior of our gunship as the Captain lifted a piece of shrapnel from the doorway. He looked back at me and Torch. My head felt like splitting. There was an arm laying over me. I sat up and it slid off me. It belonged to Thorn. He lay next to me in the wrecked gunship like a dropped porcelain doll. I checked his pulse. It was there, but only faintly.  
“There are at least a dozen droids coming our way. We need to get out.” Our Captain had finished clearing the debris to escape. There was still a high ringing in my ears, like the siren to signal lunch break back on Kamino.

Torch was checking the other bodies around him. “Dead.” he said finally, and stood up to go. “Come on.” I wondered how he could possibly be so stoic. Or maybe he was just as afraid as I under that helmet.

“Help me with him” I said gesturing toward Thorn. “Leave him. We don’t have time.” The Captain called back he had stepped out of the gunship and started scanning the horizon. “They’re coming now and we need to find the others.”

Still, I tried to lift Thorn, who was groaning faintly when I tried to move him. I removed his helmet and immediately regretted it. Under the blood and bruises I could barely recognize the man I had trained with for so many years.

“74, is that you?” He whispered.” His voice was raspy and dry. He coughed and his face twisted with pain.

Torch knelt down beside me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “74, we need to go.”  
The Captain was now firing his blaster at something I could not see, and I heard the sound of shots and yelling coming closer. “Get up Trooper, or we’ll leave you behind.” The pain in my head struck like a blade through my skull as I stood and moved to toward the entrance. The last thing I heard before I was engulfed in noise, was Thorn calling after me, “wait 74, where you going?” wait for me. I can...”

It felt like the world exploded once again, rubble sprayed in front of me and I felt a small rock hit my helmet. I ran as fast as I could after the swiftly fading form of the Captain. I nearly ran into another trooper who was firing shots into the dust.

A dash of light shot past me and I saw a droid approaching through the swirling dust and long grass. It was only then that I realized my blaster was still on my belt. My hand fumbled as I drew it. The droid continued marching toward me. It’s mechanical arms and legs clanked as it moved. I fired of a shot as quick as I could and missed. I was suddenly aware that my fellow clones had retreated, and I was alone. I fired again, and through some wild gift of fate I hit it’s head knocking it to the ground. Then I ran as fast my legs would carry me back toward a makeshift barrier the army had constructed many meters away. Only when I had dived behind did I look up to see a pile of smoking metal that had once been our gunship.

A shadow blocked the sun and my heart stopped. I looked up to see a tall Chalacten woman standing above me. She ignited a bright blue blade and used it to deflect some of droid shots. It was the General.

Incoherent voices rang out and blaster fire rained down. I leaned over the barrier and fired my blaster into the wave of droids marching through the long, reddish grass. All along the line, troopers fell with strangled cries. And droids crumbled to the ground in pieces. Every now and then the General would leap up and out from the barrier to slice the droids with her lightsaber. She was graceful and seemed to cut through the wave of droids like matchsticks.

After an age of sound and pain. An age of mindless mechanical firing at the dwindling hoard, the General leaps up from the barrier and calls to her men to follow. A figure I don’t know leaps up and immediately staggers back with a smoking hole in his chest. My legs feel weak and trembly, but somehow, I scramble over the barricade after my General, firing shot after shot ahead as we push forward.

~~~~~~~~~

The sun was setting over the plains as we rested in the few sparse moments of peace we had. The General was seeing to the wounded and consulting with her scouts. I simply sat down where I was among a few piles of dismembered droids. I removed my helmet and breathed slow steadying breathes of air. After the smells of dirt and death the wind smelled like something green, and maybe a little rain. Maybe it would rain soon. It rained a lot on Kamino, and the smell of water was ever present. I now wished dearly that I where back there now. I had heard people talk about there home before. While Kamino wasn’t much of a home, with it’s white sterile walls and tall, thin Kaminoan scientists, but I guess it was my home, because I missed it.

I looked up as a small rock fell onto the ground beside Torch as he was eating. It glinted in the swiftly fading light. No. It was flashing red.

“Grenade!” The other clones were suddenly invigorated with the energy of fear. I jumped forward, but I couldn’t get there in time and Torch seemed to stunned to move. I slipped on the hard ground and fell, my hand flying out. The Grenade flew a good ten meters away just before it went off. Rubble soared in all directions from the blast. I remember nothing much after that. Thinking back, I still don’t really understand what happened to that Grenade, only that we both survived it. How I had managed to move it without touching it, still made no sense.

The first thing I feel when I awake is the cold wind. The ground is hard. The grass whispers in the night. In my foggy mind, I vaguely wonder what they are saying. I open my eyes to see a velvety sky, pricked with stars. For some reason I recall feeling so incredibly peaceful for a few moments. Then the pain returns. I remember the gunship. I remember the battle. The droids. The Grenade. I lay there letting the pain wash over me. I start to worry. Where is everyone? Where am I? I sit up and the pain doubles. I can just see through the swaying grass the bodies of clones and droids. The grass is beaten down in a large swath. There must have been an ambush. The Army must have moved on. I should probably catch up with them. They won’t be too hard to track as they have a clear string paths through the grass. For some reason the thought of following them back into the battle makes my head hurt more. Wearily I pick up my baster and helmet from where it was forgotten on the ground and follow.

Logically I know that I could run into the droid platoons at any time, but I am to tired be afraid. It was only a week ago that I had left Kamino to fight in the Grand Army of the Republic, but it feels like years. I thought about the stories of war I had been told by some older clones I met. None of it compared to the raw chaos and pain I had experienced today. I had been in simulations before, but it had been so clean and robotic, each action taught and practiced. Everything I had been taught for my whole life seemed to vanish the moment I had awoken in that gunship. From that point on it had only been about survival. None of the other clones seemed afraid. Maybe we were engineered not to feel fear. Why did I, then? And what had happened with the Grenade? It just … moved. In the moment there had been no effort involved, no energy exerted. The Grenade had flown backward as if gravity had propelled it.

I stopped to rinse my hands in a cool shallow stream, and sat on the bank. I was suddenly aware of how dry my mouth felt. So, I knelt on the muddy bank to drink. No sooner had I touched the water, then my knee slipped and I fell onto the gravelly river bottom. The cold was shocking, yet soothing. As the water bubbled around me, I simply lay back and looked up at the sky. I was tired. I needed to get up. I got up to crouch and as I was looking around for my blaster on the riverbank, I saw it. A glint of emerald green. It stood apart from the dark pebbles and red grass. I reached for it. It seemed to draw me in with a force I could not resist. It rested gently in my palm. It was a beautiful green gemstone. It was uneven, yet still seemed perfect. The wind lifted the grass and they bent themselves and whispered again. The crystal seemed to glow as if it had its’ own heartbeat and pulse. I breathed slowly, and closed my hand. For the hours after, I felt the stone clutched in my hand, as I marched under the stars.


	2. Chapter 2

Dawn sunlight was flowing over the horizon as I reached the crest of a hill. Spread out below me, was a plain of silver streams. The grass was short now, and crisscrossed with shining streams, with mottled stony banks. And beyond that, at the roots of the majestic mountains I had seen from further off was a massive stone building. It looked like it had been hewn out of the mouton face and carved out. It had several small towers and pyramids. 

But all of this I took in after I saw the battle. Clones were advancing across the the plains toward the building, where I could make out the sight of many droids, both in front of it and hidden around and on top of its' ancient balconies. Blaster fire continued to pour from both sides. The clones however had little to no cover, so they were using large metal shield. The troopers would line up facing the enemy and lock their shields together, forming an impassible barrier, then several would suddenly break cover and run forward, while those behind covered for them. 

My legs felt as steady as the thin grass surrounding me. _Push forward Trooper. You know your duty._ I lifted my blaster, checking to see everything was in order, and stowed the small crystal in a hidden pocket behind my holster. Stumbling forward I ran, across the gurgling streams, over the rocky banks until I reach the first line of Troopers. We were just out of range of the droids. I sheltered for a moment to catch my breath being the steel barriers. The clones holding them were braced against the enemy fire, but a few other were sheltering with me. 

"74. Is that you?" I looked up to see the familiar helmet of Torch. "I thought you were dead. What happened?" 

Wordlessly I gripped his shoulder. Now was no time for explanations.

"Are you ready to make a run for it?" To his left was a young human boy. He couldn't have been more than sixteen standard years. Then, I saw the weapon at his hip. He was Jedi. 

"Uh, yes sir." 

"Is this your first battle, Trooper?"

"Yes, sir" 

He smiled reassuringly at me. He was breathing heavily, but his eyes had an energized glint in them.

"Let's go."

We broke running toward the next wall of shields. I fired my blaster at any droid I could see, and beside me, the Jedi helped by deflecting the shots aimed at us, back at the droids. Together, we pressed on

~~~~~

The battle was won. The army was the gathered in the main chamber. The medics were taking care of the injured. I was sitting on an ancient some bench looking up at the hight ceiling. It was so tall, it was hidden I shadows, but lower down, small windows set I the stone allowed shafts of sunlight to land on the dusty marble floor. What was this place? It was old no doubt. It didn't look like a military base. It was far too grand. However, as I seen, it was completely isolated from any civilization on the planet. My eyes felt like they contained a carton of sand, and I closed them. Laying back on the bench I tried to rest. There was something about place. Despite the battle, and my exhaustion, this place seemed to sing around me. It almost felt like the air itself were alive. Maybe I was delirious, but the fanciful thought occurred to me that the place itself knew I was here. Not long after that I was asleep, dreaming of the whispering grass, and the green crystal. 

"Hey Shiny. Wake up." 

I felt like I was being pulled up from an entrancing ocean. It opened my eyes to see the Captain who had survived the gunship with me. Scrambling on the rock bench I leapt up to stand at attention. The Captain let out a brief bark of laughter. 

"You certainly are a Shiny if ever I saw one."

"Shiny, sir?"

"See your armor? It's shiny and new, just like you." 

I didn't really have anything so say that, but the Captain continued. 

"It's 74 isn't it? The General wants to see you." 

"Me?"

"Yes, you, come on." 

I sped up to walk beside the Captain as he set off across the expansive chamber. 

"Was he a friend of yours? In the gunship."

At the mention of Thorn, I felt stab of pain in my head it was a ghostly reminder of the pain I felt only the day before. I should probably have my head checked to make sure I hand't hurt anything. 

"Yeah. Yeah, he was."

"You're gonna see a lot more of that, but it never really does get easier."

I nodded. I knew that. This is a war, and we are soldiers. 

"Why does the General want to see me?" I asked, changing the subject.

"I don't know. She didn't say," We stopped at the arched entrance to smaller side chamber where the General and the young Jedi I met from the battle were going over a holograph of the building and surrounding terrain. 

"The Trooper you requested is here, General." said the Captain, then Turing to me, "I'm Captain Grey." He nodded to me and set off again. 

The General studied me as I entered. "You are CT 7474-208?"

"Yes ma'am. People call me 74." 

She nodded. I felt neither hostility, nor warmth from her, but maybe something like curiosity. 

"Well, 74, I complement you on your excellent reactions during the ambush last night. You saved a man's life."

"Thank you."

"I noticed that you posses a certain skill that I have not seen among your fellow clones."

What? What skill could she possibly be talking about. My skill for getting hit in the head? 

"I'm afraid I don't..." 

"And now that I have met you, I am sure. The Force is strong with you 74."


	3. The Force

"What is the Force?" 

The young Jedi couldn't suppress a snort, but the General ignored him. 

"It's the energy that is all around us. It is part of all that lives. Those who are strong with the force can attune themselves to it. Your display was a clear example of the force."

I must admit that at the time I really had no idea what she talking about, but I didn't want to emberass myself in front of the Jedi, so I just held my tongue while she continued.

"You're affinity with force is unique among clones."

"Why?"

"There have been many attempts to clone force sensitives, but all have ended in failure. The unnatural replication of medichlorians usually overloads the system of any living creature, resulting in a painful a death. 

"Then what happened to me?"

"I don't know. You are an anomaly in both our understanding of force and our knowledge of science."

I didn't know what to think. What did this mean? Did this mean he could do things that the Jedi could do like... I struggled to come of with an example of Jedi powers, and realized that all I had heard of Jedi were simply that they were powerful. 

The General was watching me now, but I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“I know that you will have many questions. I have already consulted with the Jedi council. And they wish you to come to Courusant so that they may understand more about you.”

“Does this mean that I won’t fight in the war?” I wasn’t sure what to think. War was what I was bred for, if I didn’t fight. What would become of me? And now that I had this power, what was I supposed to do. And after the battle I just experienced, maybe I was too afraid to be a soldier anyway.

“We don’t know that yet, but for now, you’re too valuable to the republic, and the Jedi to waste.

I felt an instant flash of anger. Did this mean that the other clones could be wasted? That he was somehow more important than his brothers, simply because he had these strange powers?

I said none of this however, and simply saluted.

“Tomorrow, we are receiving backup from the 321st. You, and a small guard will leave for Corousant then. My padawan will also accompany you.” She nodded toward the young Jedi beside her. “This is Padawan Dume.”

“We’ve met,” said Dume, smiling at me.

“Well, be ready by tomorrow morning. You’re dismissed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the rather short chapter, but I felt this was good section to stop at before things change. Once again, feedback is always welcome.


	4. Training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 74 gets some training in the force from Keleb Dume.

“So, tell me this again. You’re a Jedi?”

“No. But I have the force.”

“What’s that?”

“I can use it to move things.”

Torch and I, were sitting in the main room of our Transport shuttle as we sailed through hyperspace to Coruscant. Captain Gray was piloting the ship, and Commander Dume was meditating in his quarters. The journey to Coruscant would take over two days. And the two clones and the Jedi had been sent with me for protection. It was odd, to say the least that these people where here for his safety. I could assume that things would be clearer when I reached the Jedi Temple. Maybe they could train me. Maybe, if I had the force, I wouldn’t be so afraid.

I realized that Torch was still talking to me.

“Can you use a lazersword? Can you crush droids?”

“No. You know what I can do, Torch. It isn’t as though I’m some sort of sorcerer.”

“Can you show me?”

Torch was looking at me in a way he had never done before. It was excitement, bordering on awe. I had never been impressive before. It gave me a heady feeling of power.

“Okay. I’ll try.”

Torch placed his blaster on the ground, and watched me carefully. Focusing my attention on the blaster, I stretched out my hand. It didn’t move. I stared harder, furrowing my brows in an attempt to concentrate on the blaster. It still didn’t move. What if the grenade had been beginner’s luck? Maybe I didn’t have the force at all, and was just defective. They would probably just send me back to Kamino.

I soft _whoosh_ sound broke my train of thought. It was Commander Dume.

“Trying to lift it?”

“Yes sir.”

“Did it work?”

I shrunk away from the Jedi and looked away, “No, sir.”

“I’m not a Jedi yet, but I can give you some advice. Your difficulty comes from the fact that you are still not used to how the force feels. You can stare at that blaster all day, but you aren’t focusing on the right thing.”

“I was concentrating as best I could sir.” I protested, a tingle of humiliation was creeping over my face. I was about be proved a fraud in front of a Jedi and my best friend.

Dume notice my discomfort, “I know you were, but instead of focusing on the blaster itself, try and feel the air around it. The blaster is not lifting itself, the force is lifting it.”

“How…?” I didn’t know how to phrase my question without being rude, but the truth was, he was asking for the impossible. How could I feel air?

Dume looked at me and then continued, “Try something different. The key is to bring your focus and senses to the force, some do this by seeing the object, but I don’t think that is right for you. Your eyes can deceive you. Close them”

Doubtfully, I obeyed, the sightlessness was uncomfortable, I had been trained to be watchful.

“Now, imagine the air around is thick like water.” I remembered one time, Torch, Thorne and I, had jumped into the sea under the cloning facility on a dare. It had been frightening, but he had learned to adapt.

“Now reach out your hand and move it. Imagine the water parting for it, and swirling around it. You create ripples through the water when you move, do you see it?”

I did so, and I could almost feel everything in the room. It was different than touching it, but felt natural. I imagined sending a wave of water as a moved my hand back and forth. “Yes, I feel it now.”

“Good, now feel the blaster.”

This was more difficult, for my sense of reason told me that since I could not touch it, there was no way I could exert force.

“You’re overthinking it. The force is with all of us, it will do as you ask.”

I imagined the currents of water lifting it up gently, once I saw it, it became easier and I moved it higher. My hands felt warmer, and the air sang like it did in the temple and around the crystal.

Torch let out a sound of amazement and I opened my eyes. The blaster was gently floating a foot above the floor.

“Wow. I never thought I’d see that.” Said Torch as he sat back and stared.

The air snapped and reality hit me. _It was floating._ As soon as I had the thought, the blaster fell to the floor with a clatter.

“Excellent!” said the Commander. He grinned at me. We’ll make a Jedi out you yet.”

Once out of the strange trance I been I realized that my hands were warm, and my brain felt weary.

“How can you do that so easily though?”

“Practice. This is first time, so you had to learn how to recognize the force. Once you know it, it becomes intuitive. The force is part of everything that lives, using it is one of the most natural things you can do.”

For the first time, I felt excited by my future. There were so many choices, and different things to learn. It felt like the Galaxy, had only just been revealed to me. And I stared at it with the wonder of a child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty much just dialogue, but there will be more action later. 
> 
> Comments are welcome!

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first post on Ao3. Constructive criticism is welcome!


End file.
